Sudani From Nigeria, the Malayalam film featuring actor-director Soubin Shahir and Nigerian actor Samuel Abiola Robinson tells the tale of football lovers from Malappuram, a district in the northern part of Kerala. The land that has football flowing through its veins has many small grounds spread across its length and breadth, where many teams compete with each other in Sevens Tournaments. Unlike the international format, Sevens games have only seven players per team. They even have players from Africa representing their teams. By all means, it can be called a short, local version of Indian Super League, but with the same intensity.
Sudani From Nigeria has Samuel (Samuel), a Nigerian national playing for a local team managed by Majeed (Soubin). They are participating in different tournaments and are currently moving forward successfully in most of them as Samuel is their main player, and is in great form. Unfortunately, Samuel gets injured outside the ground and the events following this incident constitute the crux of the film.
Director Zakariya, who has written the screenplay and also co-written the dialogues with Muhsin Parari, has done a beautiful job in taking a script with a simple subject deeply rooted to the life of football lovers of Malabar region and turning it into an engaging emotional entertainer. The funny dialogues combined with some good performances result in a movie that makes you laugh, as well as wet your eyes.
The producers of the film are two expert cinematographers Sameer Thahir and Shyju Khalid. Shyju Khalid is also the director of photography. The film, however, does not have a cinematographic extravagance in it and is rather simple like its script.
Rex Vijayan and Shahbaz Aman have composed some good songs that create a celebratory mood which is an indispensable part of football, and also strike the right chords to make emotional songs heartwarming. The background score also plays a pivotal role in making the movie engaging and entertaining.
Soubin Shahir's performance is what steers the film through. Be it comedy or an emotional scene, he has given his best. Samuel has also done justice to his role. While some supporting actors showed sparks of natural acting, some performances looked forced.
To sum it up, Sudani From Nigeria is a comparatively low budget film that has all the components of a good family entertainer.